


The Great and Terrible Hibiki Wataru

by mellyface



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Slow Burn, Wataru is a great and terrible wizard and poor tomoya is his apprentice, im bad at titles sorry lmao, it's like a fantasy princes and princesses kind of wizard AU, not harry potter though, other characters and pairings added as they come, wizards AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 01:48:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8081917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mellyface/pseuds/mellyface
Summary: At the very least, he’s sure a wizard as great as Wataru is apt enough to sense that consuming any part of Tomoya would be more likely to negate or diminish his magic talents than feed them. He’s that lackluster, completely ordinary and talentless in every way.And that’s what brings him here, freshly eighteen, still wet behind the ears—well wet all over really, thanks to this storm—on the doorstep of the great and terrible wizard who had sparked, yes, admittedly, fear but also curiosity and wonder into his heart all those years ago. If even just a sliver of him rubs off on me, just the smallest spark, he thinks, maybe I can escape a lifetime of being ordinary.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I promised the hatos if she worked on her longfic idea I would work on mine, and thus the wizard AU watatomo fic was born!!  
> It's very loosely inspired by Howl's Moving Castle (the novel) namely just in the sense that a downtrodden and seemingly ordinary person goes to live with an insufferable and misunderstood, lonely wizard and they somehow make a mark on each other's lives. The plot and characters are otherwise totally different, though, so I can't exactly call this a HMC AU, but I hope you will appreciate it regardless.  
> Thanks in advance for reading! Please treat me and watatomo kindly.

“This way, I found a spot!” Tomoya calls behind him with the excitement that only a bright-eyed fourteen-year-old can have after sneaking into the capital city arena with his best friend undetected. He looks back, Hajime is a mop of blue hair bobbing in the crowd some paces behind him. With an all-too-serious expression, Tomoya dives between elbows, ducks under someone’s armpit and extends a skinny arm to retrieve his floundering friend and pull him through.

“You okay?” Hajime looks a little woozy and breathless, but he’s always been more nervous about the whole sneaking thing compared to Tomoya. Not that Tomoya isn’t nervous and flustered out of his mind, too.

In reality, none of the spectators around them have any care whatsoever whether a couple of kids snuck in to see the Tournament or not. They’re all just as breathless, exhilarated, fixated on the stage themselves. After all, the final duel has just begun.

The Royal Tournament. The winner of which will determine who becomes the new Royally Appointed Sorcerer—the Wizard who will have the honor of pledging their life and magic to the throne for the rest of their days. It’s a tournament held only once, maybe twice in a lifetime, as the winner serves the Kingdom for life, or in very few cases, until some other circumstance calls for resignation. Such a rare and exciting battle is much talked about for days, weeks, even months, so that folk from all over gather to watch—even kids from the neighboring outlying towns are eager to sneak their way in.

Tomoya grabs Hajime’s shoulder, and the other boy nervously squeezes his hand in reply. For ground-level, common spectators, they’ve been able to get a pretty clear view.

“It’s the last match. Between Tenshouin and…?” Tomoya squints his eyes to better see the grand stage.

The Tenshouin clan had served the throne for generations. Some argue they had more power than the monarchy itself, though none would ever catch a Tenshouin saying as much themselves, at least not in words. They were careful, tactful, and powerful people.

“There he is!” Hajime squeaks. Tomoya catches a flash of blonde between the tall heads of two men in front of them as he strains to stand on his toes, and knows that must be him. But the opponent is...?

“He’s so amazing,” Hajime whispers breathlessly beside him, “But I wonder who that is he’s fighting?”

Who indeed. It’s a wizard Tomoya’s never seen before, he knows that much, though that’s not so surprising since he’s just a small town kid. Outside of the capital, most people only recognize the Tenshouins, after all. But there’s something about this other wizard, calm and smiling and holding his own against the quickly rising star, Eichi Tenshouin. He’s tall and elegant, in a black suit with long, silver-blue hair that betrays his youthful features—beautiful, really. But more than his beauty, what stands out is the way he moves. It’s less like he’s fighting and more performing, putting on a spectacular display. The magic seems to flow from his fingers in an utterly vexing, inimitable way that Tomoya can barely follow but finds he wants very much to.

He looks to Hajime to say something, remark how amazing that wizard is, but Hajime’s eyes are already far off, fixated on the blonde wizard.

They move so fast, it’s hard for Tomoya to keep up, to follow who’s winning and who’s losing, they both seem so strong in his eyes it’s hard to imagine either of them losing, but somehow the crowd seems to know better than he. From what he's hearing, the challenger currently has the upper hand. A flash of light, a flourish of silver hair, and Tomoya feels his heart pound. So this is what talent looks like, so this is a person who can do anything—do things that others can’t. That ordinary people don’t even know how to dream of.

He hears the voices murmuring around him on all sides. They grate with discomfort that their champion is losing. The voices go low in disgust, saying that the silver-haired wizard’s magic is cruel and too complicated and ugly, but all Tomoya can think is _at least it’s not ordinary_. He thinks he’ll probably never see the same tricks performed ever again in his life, it almost fills him with a kind of sadness to think it that way. The crowd continues to roar and boo him the more he succeeds and it makes something funny twist and furl in Tomoya’s chest. He finds that he wants him to win.

But the legacy belongs to the Tenshouins after all. Everything does.

When Tomoya at last sees the challenger down on his knees, face cast to the floor, when the crowd’s cheers are at their peak, Tomoya has to turn his face from the stage. He fails to see the smile cast in shadow behind the rows and rows of people that separate his quickly shrinking back from the men on stage. He’s seen enough.

“Let’s get out of here while everyone’s distracted, before we get caught.”

Tomoya yanks Hajime through a slip in the mass of shoulders that barricade them on all sides. He grabs tight to the boy’s sleeve and continues to tug him through, even though he feels like he’s the one that’s floating away, feels like crying, drifting off into his mind while allowing his feet to carry him through to safety.

When the sudden cool air bites their cheeks, signaling their final break through the crowd, Tomoya finally manages a look over at his friend. Hajime has a similarly dreamy look in his eyes, though Tomoya doesn’t feel like they’ve been watching the same thing at all.

It’s a long way home from the capital on foot, but the moon is full and bright to guide them, and they already know the path by heart—could walk it in their sleep with the number of times already that they’ve stolen away to dream of bigger things than home. There won’t be any sleeping tonight for either of them, but their heads are filled with dreams as it is. Not a word is spoken the whole journey home between the two boys, cheeks flushed with cold, hearts pounding; there’s nothing more that needs to be said, after all.

 

Four years later Tomoya has found himself breathless again, heart swelling in his chest—but less because of exhilaration and more because he can’t seem to pump enough oxygen from his lungs fast enough. Seriously, who on earth decides to build a castle on top of a mountain, no less shrouded in a fog of perpetual storm clouds?! The answer is obvious: evil wizards who don’t want uninvited guests, that’s who.

Another reminder of several along the way that he should really just go back. Tomoya’s pretty sure he’s almost been struck and killed by lightning at least seven times already. Hajime would have a laugh—he almost wants to laugh himself—at how even the long trek to the capital honestly feels like a leisurely stroll compared to scaling a mountain in a storm.

Statistically speaking, it wouldn’t be so surprising for him to die up here. He’s got rainwater in his eyes, his nose, and mouth. Every heaving gasp he takes for air at this high altitude is a mouthful of rainwater that goes straight to his lungs. He’s by all means too ordinary and unfortunate to have good survival odds hiking up a stormy mountain into a _dark cloud of black magic_ by his lonesome, but Tomoya also knows his completely non-threatening demeanor works in his favor at times like these. This kind of defensive magic is likely only cast to keep out threats. Tomoya is by definition, the absolute furthest thing from a threat, and it is this backward logic that finally brings him safely to his intended destination, albeit sopping wet, in a puddle at a Wizard’s doorstep.

Now that he’s here however, it’s harder than he’d thought to actually ruck up his courage and knock on the door. He hadn’t actually thought past this point, or rather whatever stupid fantasy conversations he’d had in his mind for the last year or so vanished from his mind at the first horrifying near-fatal crack of lightning only a few hundred meters from where he’d been resting some hours ago further down the mountain. All for the better considering how foolish and unrealistic he now realizes all of it had been. There’s a very good chance he won’t get to say anything at all, besides, before he’s thrown into a pot, boiled, and eaten.

Tomoya has heard of Wataru, though his name did not crop up in everyday talk until some time after his defeat in the Royal Tournament. By the time his name made it back down from the capital into the homes of common folk, it had been blackened considerably. The Evil Wizard Wataru, the Odd Hibiki Wataru. The recluse on the mountain, a confounding and wicked man. His powers great but his mischief even greater. They said he does things no one can comprehend, that he is feared by many, and the tales of his misdeeds are numerous and varied. Some are more far-fetched than others, some darker than others, the most popular rumor as of late being that he acquires his powers from boiling and eating humans and grinding down their leftover bones into magic powder.

Tomoya shivers at the thought, fist hovering merely inches from the wooden door, but he wonders how much of it could be true. At the very least, he’s sure a wizard as great as Wataru is apt enough to sense that consuming any part of Tomoya, especially any powder made from his very bones, would be more likely to negate or diminish his magic talents than feed them. He’s that lackluster, completely ordinary and talentless in every way.

And that’s what brings him here, freshly eighteen, still wet behind the ears—well wet all over really, thanks to the storm—on the doorstep of the great and terrible wizard who had sparked, admittedly, fear but also curiosity and wonder into his heart all those years ago. _If even just a sliver of him rubs off on me, just the smallest spark, maybe I can escape a lifetime of being ordinary_ , he thinks.

 _Or_ , Tomoya thinks, as the door swings open suddenly and fiercely despite his knuckles never actually touching its surface, sending his heart leaping a thousand feet and lodging in his throat, _more likely I will probably just die here!_

What has to be at least twenty doves fly out of the door, sending Tomoya cowering momentarily, but when the flurry dissipates, there stands a man. The man, however, is not so fearsome and great and wicked looking, so much as just tall and skinny in his pajamas and looking very tired, if not also amused. One bird flutters back to nest in his hair as he peers down to inspect Tomoya.

“Oya~? Why is there a wet little rabbit on my doorstep?”

Tomoya blinks rain out of his eyes, then rubs them with his frozen fingers.

“Um.” he says dumbly, noticing Wataru has a lot of hair—it’s very long and seems to be flowing everywhere as though it's alive.

Wataru smiles, “Well, if there’s nothing you need, could you please go home then—”

Tomoya manages to come to his senses enough at least to stop the door as it’s all but slammed in his face, pushing his way in with the stubborn strength of his whole body. Momentarily he forgets to shrivel with embarrassment at how rude it is to barge one’s way into someone else’s home.

“No, I can’t go home! Do you know how long it took me to climb up here!?” That’s not exactly the reason he can’t leave, at least not the main one, but it’s somehow still the first thing out of his mouth. At least it’s something more than ‘um.’

“No matter, I can send you back easily with a spell~”

Tomoya pales; he would almost rather climb back down the mountain himself than have all his efforts so utterly thwarted with a simple incantation.

“Please!” Tomoya clasps his palms together above his lowered head in plea, “Take me in. I want to change. I don’t want to be ordinary anymore.”

The wizard seems to have gone quiet in front of him, though Tomoya dares not lift his head just yet, as much as he’s dying to gauge his reaction. As the silence fills the space around them—and funny how he can’t seem to hear the rain anymore, as if it exists only just outside the world of Wataru’s doorway—he begins to remember the whole possibility of being killed, or worse, _eaten_. He screws his eyes shut tighter as invisible beads of sweat begin to form at the base of his neck.

Wataru surveys the kid in front of him—well maybe it’s fair to say he is a man, if only just the beginnings of one. He’s small, and practically visibly trembling, but there’s something about him that has weight to it—namely his resolve. At the very least, Wataru smells no threat on him, in fact there’s less danger about this little rabbit than even a single one of his pure white doves.

Tomoya keeps his eyes shut, keeps his head bowed, but opens his mouth, “Teach me magic. I’ll do anything. Teach me how to do what you do.”

Wataru laughs, “No one can do what I do.”

It doesn’t sound particularly arrogant or spiteful, rather almost....sad. Tomoya feels a strange pang in his chest, an instinctive desire to look up and see what kind of face goes with those words, but he keeps his head down.

“I’ll do anything.” he repeats, nearly holding his breath.

He feels a finger hook under his chin, a thumb press just below his lip, and then his gaze is unwillingly lifted to meet Wataru’s.

“Fufu. Aren’t you afraid I’m going to eat you?”

“I…” Tomoya falters. He had prepared for this, aagh, what had he planned to say again? “I-I won’t taste good! I’m weak and I don’t have any talent, so...I’d probably just make you sick...or something.”

It had sounded more convincing in his head...

Wataru immediately breaks into booming laughter at that, his voice bursting with color like blooming flowers. Tomoya can almost see them before his very eyes.

Wataru yanks the kid inside by his collar. Tomoya stumbles forward, wearing a stupid, hopeful smile.

It’s amusing, might as well have a little fun with him.  Wataru smiles back; he wonders how long before the kid goes home running. A day? An hour? It’s a shame, since he seems so earnest...

“I’ll pour you a cup of tea.”

Rather than pour, with a snap of his fingers a modest ceramic cup seems to appear in Tomoya’s hands as he’s made to sit by a fireplace. A kettle floats over and tips midair to pour his tea. Tomoya breathes a soft, 'wow'  in amazement.

“You really _are_ a magician…”

Wataru has to quirk a smile at that. Tomoya immediately catches it and blushes. He really is too ordinary and useless, isn’t he?

“Ahaha, what am I saying? Of course you are, I’m sure all this magic is yours—then uh, wait, the storm, too?”

Wataru nods, flicking his wrist and suddenly there is a cup of...something, in his hands, from which he takes a long drink. Tomoya’s own drink is some kind of herbal tea, it’s warm and soothing and makes his much-overworked muscles slowly unwind.

“But I’ve already known about your magic for a long time—”

“Ah, which tale have you heard? There are many. Do you come from the West? They love to spin tales of how I kidnap virgins and turn them into doves.” He tickles a finger affectionately over the soft breast feathers of the one particular bird still nuzzled in his hair. Tomoya flinches in surprise, ... _virgins…_.?!

He shakes his head, “Um. No, I haven’t heard that.”

“Then perhaps you come from—”

“I saw you in the tournament.” Tomoya interrupts, feeling strangely impatient and giddy, “Four years ago. You fought against the Royal Sorcerer—well back then he was just an ordinary Wizard, though.” Tomoya hadn’t thought he’d seemed like much. Well, no, that wasn’t quite right. Compared to himself, anyone was amazing. But _next to Wataru_ he hadn’t seemed like much.

“Ah…”

Wataru curls his lips, hinting at a smile. Well now this is certainly a surprise. He vanishes his cup and folds his hands beneath his chin. His smile widens, eyes twinkling, “You must know then, just how terribly grotesque and incomprehensible my magic is.”

Tomoya goes quiet—he doesn’t want to agree at all with that description, but it doesn’t seem like something that’s open for him to argue.

“Fufu. Very well. You can stay for now, little rabbit. You must be tired, so sleep.”

Another snap of his fingers and a worn, rope ladder falls down from seemingly nowhere—though when Tomoya follows it upward with his eyes, he sees it leads to a small, cramped loft, furnished with a couple of chests, a mattress, and some blankets and pillows. Honestly it’s more than he can hope to ask for. When he looks back at Wataru, he’s halfway up the iron, spiral staircase across the room, wrapped in his blanket, dove perched on his head. Both Wataru and the bird seem to peer down at him in unison.

“What is your name?”

“Tomoya.”

Wataru nods dramatically.

“Goodnight, Tomoya. Perhaps I’ll eat you in the morning~”

He disappears with a flourish, and Tomoya climbs the ladder and slumps down on the mattress.

There’s a lot he needs to process, but it can wait until morning. He’s just climbed a mountain, after all. Tomorrow it will all be real and he can deal with it then—or maybe he’ll find it’s all just a dream? Maybe that would be better, even if this had been his own idea, his own resolve....

His last thought before sleep takes him is that he really hopes won’t be eaten tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If wataru seems a bit subdued it's because of some circumstantial stuff in the story that will come to light later, I hope it's not too grating for now.  
> Anyway, I have at least three more chapters of this pretty heavily outlined, so hopefully expect another chapter soonish. I'm really excited to share this dumb story with you all!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tomoya wakes up to find that he is neither dreaming nor being boiled in a pot, but he also soon begins to suspect that either would almost be preferable to dealing with Hibiki Wataru.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 at last! I've been working a lot and also busy playing the current event (hajime pls), so it took me longer to get this out than I wanted. I also wrote too much (LOL) and had to push back some stuff until the next chapter, but it worked out better this way I think.  
> Please bear with my still slightly-subdued-compared-to-usual Wataru, he's got some circumstances...he'll go back to being more like his original character by the end of next chapter!

Tomoya wakes up to find that he is neither dreaming nor being boiled in a pot, but he also soon begins to suspect that either would almost be preferable to dealing with Hibiki Wataru. The wizard is loud, says confusing things, and never seems to stop flapping about even in the late hours of the night.

Do wizards even sleep, he has to wonder, when Wataru wakes him up at what has to be before dawn to loudly recite poetry, in a booming voice that Tomoya is sure must be imbued with magic—no human could ordinarily be that loud, could they?

Tomoya blinks sleep from his eyes, glancing about the room, disoriented. He’s somehow found himself half-tangled in his sheets with half a leg off the futon, a sure sign of a fitful sleep. Still half asleep, he’d almost forgotten he's not back home in his room—that's just a faraway place now. He thinks about Hajime, thinks about his little sister. His expression sours to a frown when he realizes they're probably still fast asleep right about now, as any human rightfully  _should_ _be_ at this hour.

Stupid wizard. He buries his face in his pillow. He can’t even accuse him of being a nuisance when there are no neighbors to wake, only Tomoya the freeloader who obviously has no say in the hour much less manner he is awoken. He's too busy being tired and grumpy to notice let alone appreciate the smooth timbre of Wataru’s voice or the effortless, melodic way in which he strings the words together. When it's constantly rainy and gloomy outside like this all he wants to do is sleep.

So much for that.

He has half a mind to throw his pillow down at the man and bark at him to shut up, but he's still admittedly kind of scared of him. It's only been a couple of days and they haven't actually spoken much, Wataru being far too loud and flippant to have any semblance of a normal conversation with when he's around, and otherwise disappearing either upstairs or outdoors for hours on end at a time to do god only knows what. _Hopefully not eating people_ , Tomoya thinks with a shiver, for all that he hopes that can't really be true. But even if Wataru seems to always only wear one expression (a smile), Tomoya doesn't quite feel assured that this is enough to mean Wataru is a nice person.

Regardless, it's been two full days now and it's obvious enough that Tomoya is just a fly on the wall. The wizard is completely content to ignore him, is probably waiting for him to just leave or make some kind of move.

He stumbles out of bed and descends the rope ladder, hearing the soft  _pat_ of Wataru’s book closing behind him. When he turns around the wizard is eyeing him closely with his arms extended, forefingers and thumbs framed in front of his face in a rectangle formation.

“What are you doing?” Tomoya asks tentatively.

“Taking a picture.”

Wataru breaks away to snap his fingers and a photograph materializes out of thin air, fluttering neatly into his long-fingered hands. Curious, Tomoya pads across the cold, dusty wooden floor to peer at it. Sure enough the photo is of Tomoya, frowning over his shoulder at Wataru, propped up on the bottom rungs of the dangling ladder—only there is a stark difference between the photo and reality, namely that in the photo he seems to be wearing some sort of ridiculous rabbit getup.

Tomoya yanks the photo out of his hands, or rather tries to, but Wataru is fast and his reach is higher than Tomoya’s.

“Don't just alter my appearance as you please.” Tomoya grumps, leaving it at that as Wataru vanishes the photo away with another wave of his hand, probably for safekeeping.

“Pervert,” he grumbles under his breath and stalks over to the pantry, yanking it open with a surly fling of his arm.

Wataru merely chuckles and sets to putting away his book properly on the shelf. It’s funny how he still seems to do some things selectively by hand, despite that he undoubtedly has the magic for it, Tomoya notes.

Tomoya sets out preparations for breakfast; it had been a little presumptuous and nosy of him to help himself to Wataru’s cupboards the first time, but when he'd awoken the first morning and no one had come downstairs for hours, his hunger had gotten the better of him. He had been too afraid to go upstairs into uncharted territory, lest Wataru be hungry himself and decide to make a meal of Tomoya after all. But at the smell of Tomoya’s cooking, the wizard’s nose had carried him downstairs for a proper meal in no time, without any complaint towards the younger boy for helping himself.

Tomoya feeds a log to the fire and greases up the pan, at least he knows how to cook—as if that's enough to earn his keep. He realizes suddenly that a wizard of Wataru’s caliber could probably conjure up a gorgeous meal fit for kings by accident with a mere sneeze. It's obvious there is nothing he can offer of value to Wataru, and they've barely interacted, so really what's keeping him here? It's starting to chew at Tomoya’s nerves.

“You obviously don't have any expectations of me.” Tomoya says finally, testing the waters, eyes fixated on the pan.

“You're used to that, though, aren't you?”

Tomoya already knows enough at least to know it's foolish to expect Wataru to give a clear answer to anything. He slaps a few slabs of ham onto the pan and is met with a satisfying sizzle, then follows it up with some bread and eggs. He takes another deep breath, trying to be careful with his words.

“Are you going to teach me magic?”

He doesn't have to look over to feel the Wizard’s amusement pointed at him; his ears go pink, he feels a fool. Wataru has nothing to gain by teaching him anything, after all, and who's to say he could even learn?

“It's not that simple, Tomoya. You need to build a little character first.” Wataru doesn't even try to hide that he's clearly deriving amusement at Tomoya's expense, “An actor does not simply land a leading role in his very first audition.”

Tomoya looks away from the mesmerizing swirl of the thickest, most golden yolk he has ever seen in his life to squint at Wataru. “I'm not an actor though? I'm a magician.”

Wataru laughs freely, sparing him no dignity and Tomoya immediately realizes his blunder. He's merely a _wannabe_ magician, it's not like he actually knows any magic yet. Even if he hasn't told the wizard as much himself, the man can probably sense it.

“You are a boy. And a very ordinary one at that.”

There's no malice in his words but that makes them hurt all the more. It's true, after all.

“I don't want to be. That's why I'm here.”

“How are you so certain you can learn from me? Even the most gifted student would probably think my performance to be too complex.”

At hearing Wataru voicing his fears, panic begins to rise in Tomoya’s chest. “W-we can start at the basics! Anything, anything you think I can do. I'll study hard, so…!”

Wataru takes his plate and stands abruptly, approaching the hearth. He picks up his share of the ham, eggs, and toast from the pan with his bare hands and places them on his own plate, somehow without burning his fingers or creating any mess. Tomoya just blinks in surprise.

“Very well,” he waves a dismissive hand at the boy while gliding across the room to the staircase, “There's plenty here for you to learn from without my lifting a finger, so you're free to glean whatever knowledge you can. If you prove capable perhaps I'll teach you a thing or two.

“That is, if I don't get bored and eat you first. You may be painfully ordinary but you’re at least as good a meal as an egg, I would venture.” Wataru smirks and closes one eye, sizing up Tomoya's small frame at the bottom of the staircase between his thumb and forefinger. Then he disappears upstairs, irritating laughter resounding in his wake.

Tomoya looks down at the sizzling pan, sliding it off the flames to cool. He picks up his plate and takes another breath, glancing back at the pan. Here goes nothing.

Tongue between his lips pursed tightly in concentration, he tries to visualize in his mind’s eye that the pan is cool, that it can't burn him. He reaches in to pick up a slice of ham between his fingers and hisses when, of course, the crackling iron pan sears his fingers. Of course he's an idiot to have expected otherwise.

 

Tomoya’s exploration of the castle is cautious at best, but in most cases the second he touches anything he's already leapt halfway across the room in fear. Castle isn't really the word for it, it's more like a castle-shaped house, not actually all that big up close but certainly vast and winding for just one person to live there alone. There seem to be a lot of corridors that narrow out into nothing at all, to which Wataru comments at one point (when he catches Tomoya nosing about) that he’s “saving for later,” whatever that means.

He had started out in the main room first, as there was plenty to see just in there, before working his way down the winding corridors that trailed off from every corner. Aside from the pantry and obvious kitchen things he hadn't yet touched much else, but he does think the small library is worth a look. Judging by the spines of the books, however, he finds them to be largely unhelpful, mostly pertaining to the arts—he assumes for the sake of entertaining guests, but then again who in their right mind would call upon this guy? Well, he supposes _he_ had himself, but he hadn’t exactly come to be entertained or keep company. Besides, the layer of dust coating the room seems to suggest an obvious lack of recent visitors.

Tomoya cracks open a book, first dusting off the cover with a nervous hand, only for several spiders to crawl out from the folds in the pages. Immediately he drops the book with a panicked yelp, leaping onto the couch as more spiders scurry out from the startling impact and crawl over his feet.

Well, that's enough of this room, he thinks, though he waits for his heart to settle before hopping off the sofa. All that's left is upstairs.

Tomoya sucks in a breath when he reaches the top of the stairs and sees the first door come into view. The corridor is dark and too long to see the end of without further illumination, which does not exactly leave an easy feeling in his stomach. He settles for what's in sight, wondering if he should knock first before entering. Somehow he can't bring himself to do so, though he does quietly push the door ajar and silently poke his head in.

The room, thankfully, is uninhabited. It appears to be a study of sorts, or rather Tomoya can't find a word more fitting than that but in all honesty he's never seen any place quite like it in his life. The Wizard’s house is cluttered from floor to ceiling in every room, but even more so in here. From above hang many trinkets and gems, things that twinkle and sparkle, make sounds or change shape if he comes too close to them. There are charms tacked to the walls and pages from books and maps and musical scores and other things both the language and purpose of which he can't determine. And lining the walls are dozens of shelves and cubbies of various size and make, housing jars labeled in barely legible wizard’s scrawl; everything from seemingly commonplace herbs and spices to things Tomoya has completely never even heard of before nor would be able to read or recognize.

A large wooden desk takes up the corner of the room though there's hardly any workspace visible what with the books and leaflets and maps and note pages scattered about, and even what appears to be some recently abandoned project: a sampling of chopped up herbs and a smear of something wet(?) and shiny half ground up in a marble mortar.

Curiosity getting the better of him, Tomoya comes forward with the intention of swiping his finger along the bottom of the bowl to see what it is for himself. He's not sure what he plans to do, maybe just see what it feels like, what it smells like, what it even _is_ , but before he can touch it a sing-song voice directly behind him makes him jump.

“I wouldn't touch that if I were you~”

Tomoya scowls at Wataru for sneaking up on him, even though he's the one who’d been snooping around in the first place.

“Can't you enter a room normally?”

“Now, now, blaming others is a bad habit, little rabbit. Perhaps if you are so easily startled you should pay more attention to your surroundings,” Though still smiling, Tomoya feels like maybe for a moment Wataru had looked displeased.

Tomoya knows he's in the wrong here, that he's just being defensive about being caught, so he changes the subject rather than argue, returning to the bowl. “What is it?”

“A failed experiment.”

The honesty of Wataru's words takes him by surprise. It's true that Wataru is a wizard once defeated, something Tomoya had even seen, more or less, with his own eyes—regardless of whether or not he had turned away at the very end, but it still comes as something of a shock to him to hear it come so easily from Wataru himself that he's failed.

Wataru, sensing this surprise, just chuckles softly.

“Did you think even great wizards don't have failures now and then? That is very cute and naive, Tomoya.” Wataru pats his head and Tomoya flinches just a little at the sudden contact.

“But I suppose you're not wrong. Being a genius, I can conjure and perform any kind of Amazing magic. Naturally, it's not difficult for someone like me.”

Tomoya opens his mouth to accuse the man of conceit before remembering it was because of Wataru’s magic that he had come here. Of course the wizard is only reiterating that which Tomoya already knows well himself.

“However,” he continues, “There are some things that can't be done even with magic.”

Before Tomoya can ask what he means, Wataru slides the mortar and pestle off the desk with a flick of his wrist, as if it's something trivial. Tomoya braces himself for a loud clatter, but it hardly seems to make a sound—probably the wizard's magic at work again, and somehow the conversation seems to end there.

He stuffs his hands in his pockets and looks around the room. “So this is where you practice spells?”

Wataru nods, “Certain spells, yes.”

Tomoya gets the feeling the wizard isn't going to explain any further than that, that this is his silent challenge for Tomoya to learn on his own. But he does ask one more thing, “Is it okay for me to come in here while you're working? I think I would learn from assisting you.”’

“Mm, perhaps you would.”

It's not exactly a yes, but it's not a no either, and judging by the way Wataru seems to chuckle almost fondly Tomoya wants to think he's done the right thing in currying the wizard’s favor by asking. Either that or he's totally walked into a trap by offering to help. He's going to try not to think about that increasingly likely possibility, since he's determined to learn.

“That herb you were crushing in the bowl….it was….?” Tomoya wanders back across the room towards the many shelves, trying not to give Wataru the amusement and satisfaction of seeing him nearly jump as something shoots down from the ceiling and whistles in his ear when he walks by. Heart stilling, he leans in, squinting hard at the rows and rows of jars, but everything just looks the same to him no matter how hard he tries. It's just a bunch of leaves. He frowns.

“Comfrey,” Wataru says, and slams a book down on the bench in front of Tomoya, causing him to startle for the hundredth time. “Please don't frown at my plants, Tomoya, they'll wither up.”

If that’s the case, Tomoya opts to direct his frown full force at _Wataru_ instead. The wizard merely laughs, but Tomoya thinks for a second he seems a bit tired.

“I'll give you a hint, since you're so desperate to learn. If you want to learn a practice, you should start first by familiarizing yourself with the tools and materials. In that book there should be everything you need to know about the things you see in these shelves. And where to procure them.”

“Procure them…?” Tomoya slowly reaches for the book, eyeing it warily for any signs of spiders before lifting it. _Oof_ , It's heavy.

“Yes. I may be a wizard but it's not as if my shelves are filled with an endless supply, fufu. They must be acquired. You can find many of them just outside in the garden, however.”

“The garden?” Tomoya blinks. He had explored pretty thoroughly, he'd thought, and hadn't seen any garden. How could anything grow, besides, on this stormy mountain where it’s always wet and gray?

Wataru flaps a trailing sleeve toward the wall behind him with a nod of his head and Tomoya turns to see a door that he _knows_ wasn't there before. He doesn't appreciate being made a fool of, and turns back around to tell the man as much but he's already disappeared.

“Stupid, annoying wizard…” He grumbles, hiking up the heavy book in his arms and pushing down on the door handle with the weight of his upper body. It's obvious that he doesn't know what he's doing and Wataru probably is more amused by this rather than having any actual faith in Tomoya, but whatever the case he does at least have some real foundation to learn now and he's not fool enough overlook it.

When he cracks the door open he's met with sunlight, glaring in his unsuspecting eyes. Well, it's a magic door, so Tomoya’s not exactly surprised if the garden, too, is magic and therefore not subject to Wataru’s stormy spell. So this is the weather outside in the _real_ world, he thinks. Imagining his friends and family out enjoying this beautiful weather right now makes him feel a little funny but it's not like he's homesick. It's only been a couple of days, after all. Anyway he has other things to think about.

He sidesteps his way carefully down the wooden stairs descending into the garden, treading slowly since he's got his arms tied up in carrying the giant book. He plops down in the grass and cracks it open, retrieving a pen he'd taken earlier from his pocket to start taking notes. Might as well just start from the beginning and write down what he sees. He gets a system worked out eventually, figuring out how to quickly narrow down and classify each plant by its characteristics, and before he realizes it over two hours have gone by and his notebook is already half filled with scribblings.

 

Tomoya wakes to the smell of grass and dirt, and the feeling of something soft brushing his leg. He sits up groggily, feeling a clump of grass unstick from his skin where his shirt had ridden up. The sun now hangs low in the late afternoon sky, he figures he must have dozed off for a good solid hour.

The soft thing brushes his leg again and Tomoya becomes more alert, glancing down to see a handsome black cat rubbing it's head on his leg.

“Were you trying to wake me?” he laughs gently, lowering his hand to rub between its ears, “That was thoughtful of you, thanks.”

He didn't think Wataru the type to care for a cat, but it also seems unlikely for a stray to have wandered all this way.

“What's your name, little guy?”

The cat obviously doesn't answer—even if this is a wizard’s castle, in the end a cat is just a cat, he thinks. Somehow that fact is  comforting.

He scratches the small beast affectionately behind the ears and under the chin, feeling his spirits considerably lifted just by encountering this cute animal.

“Honestly, what are you doing with an annoying and evil guy like him when you're so sweet?” He coos, drawing the cat in for a hug. It flops in his arms and doesn't really seem to protest, even purrs. That's encouraging. “Well for that matter what am I doing with him, either?”

The cat meows. Tomoya laughs again and sets it down.

“I won't give up yet, though. If you have any tips on how to deal with him be sure to let me know, okay?”

 

He's walked into a trap after all.

Tomoya soon learns over the next two weeks what it means to assist Wataru in his experiments and spellcraft—i.e.  _almost certain death_ . It's not that Wataru is bad at what he does, in fact, far from it. He's gifted, seriously _too_ gifted, to the point that he doesn't blink twice attempting things that could easily kill the average wizard if even somewhat carelessly attempted. Tomoya’s been turned into a rabbit, a frying pan(?), a fly (in which instance he'd been nearly squashed when Wataru had tried to catch and restore him), been given strange ears and a tail, shrunken to the size of a pushpin and enlarged to near the size of the castle itself (he'd broken through the ceiling with his head, which had throbbed afterward for days on end), and nearly been set on fire more times than he could count without warning during Wataru's more _offensive_ experiments. Tomoya has the nagging suspicion that Wataru’s doing all of this on purpose, but he refuses to let himself be made light of. Or rather he supposes he has no choice in the matter but he's doing his best to endure it anyway.

It feels like the final straw, however, when Wataru begins feeding him strange things with terrible side effects. One evening, after an hour of vomiting up copious mouthfuls of golden pebbles, he turns to Wataru, red eyed, with a look of utter contempt.

“What is the point of doing something like this?” he coughs up one final perfectly smooth, perfectly round piece of gold, “is there a benefit to practicing this kind of magic or are you doing this solely just to bully me?”

“When you can perform every spell there is, you have to try new things. I've merely expanded my horizons by dabbling in alchemy and concoctions~”

“I don't believe that for a second. This isn't a new experiment, I know it's not—you're just messing with me on purpose!”

He rises to his feet, legs wobbly partially from spending the last hour on his knees on a hard wood floor and partially out of fear for standing up to the great and terrible Hibiki Wataru. Fear, but also rage. He feels kind of like he's going to heave-up again, even though the horrible enchantment is already finished with.

_“This isn't the kind of magic I admired you for! ”_

Wataru is silent for a moment, his back turned to Tomoya; the room feels cold and for a minute the ordinary boy shrinks back in fear. He's an idiot, he's totally done it now—he's going to be eaten for sure. But when Wataru turns around his smile is calm.

“If you think that's going to hurt me you'll have to try harder, I'm afraid. I'm rather used to being rejected you know.”

Tomoya frowns, it's not like he can blame people for feeling that way about Wataru but he still doesn't feel good hearing that. Who would?

“You are free to leave any time, no one’s keeping you here. You can even take the gold with you, you've certainly earned it.” Wataru gestures to the saliva-coated chunks of gold that litter the floor.

And that's when Tomoya really has had it, because he knows that's the same as being told he's earned nothing.

“Quit messing around. It's not real gold.” He takes up a handful of 'gold', ignoring the unpleasant way his own spit slimes off on his shaking fingers, and hurls it at the wizard’s feet. Predictably, it crumbles to ash and then vanishes completely, “I know this one already, it's in that book you gave me. I _told_ you, I know it's not some experiment you came up with.”

Tomoya sniffs angrily, trying to hold back tears because he's supposed to be grown up now, but he's just so _frustrated_. He wipes his hand on his pants and curls his fingers into a tightly wound fist. Even if Wataru wasn't an all-powerful wizard, punching him would probably still be a bad idea, as much as he wants to try, so he shoves his fist in his pocket and pushes past him to the garden door instead. He doesn't want to hear whatever likely infuriating comment Wataru has for him anyway.

The door closes behind him with a slam, and Wataru lowers himself gracefully to a kneel, picking up the remaining pieces of gold one by one, watching them crumble between his fingers; he smiles.

“So you've been studying properly after all. Good boy.”

 

Tomoya nearly tears the pages out of his book in a hurry to find his place. At last he reaches a section of white margins that have yet to be filled to the edge with careful notes, marking where he'd left off his studies. He's painfully average, so he has to spend time first deciphering and then rewriting everything he reads into simpler terms in order to learn it better, but the act of writing it is enough most of the time for the information to stick. It's nothing like the magic he'd seen on the stage that day, the magic that he'd come here with the hopes to learn, but this is admittedly fascinating too, and more importantly it seems in the range of something he can maybe actually _do_.

Right now though he's too angry, too shaken to make sense of anything he's reading. He reads the same paragraph at least five times before realizing the reason the words aren't making any sense to him is because he's reading them through blurry tears.

As if on cue the cat comes up to nudge at his side. Tomoya sniffs and wipes his eyes on the backs of his hand, not wanting to look uncool in front of his only friend as of late.

“That stupid wizard,” he mutters, though he feels his anger dissolve considerably as the cat butts it's soft black head into the palm of his hand, “always doing perverted tricks on me and nearly getting me killed. You are a saint for living with him, you know that?”

The cat meows, probably in agreement, but maybe there's something it sees in Wataru that Tomoya can't that leads it to stay with him. That, or more realistically there's no one else on this stupid lonely mountain to feed it.

“He's seriously the worst, laziest _fraud_. How can he tell me to leave when he hasn't even taught me anything yet!”

With a heavy sigh Tomoya flops onto his back, exhausted both from puking up gold for the last hour and from the adrenaline of his first sort-of-real argument with the wizard. Now that it's over he feels a little embarrassed of his behavior, and also amazed he hadn't been pulverized or eaten on the spot. Best not to get too ahead of himself, it's likely Wataru will come out here to eat him for real soon if he doesn't get over his temper tantrum and come back inside to make dinner. Still he closes his eyes and feels like he doesn't want to open them for a long time—only the cat starts meowing loudly and repeatedly butting against his hand.

“Whaaat,” he groans, throwing an arm over his face to block out the world, “Now even _you_ aren’t gonna let me rest?”

He receives an indignant meow in response.

“Okay, okay, sorry, I was grumpy. What do you want?” Tomoya rolls over on his stomach, blinking one eye open and peering nose-to-nose with his furry friend.

The cat pads over to the book and nudges the pages with its nose until they reach somewhere near the end. Curious, Tomoya sits up and crawls closer to take a look. It looks to be like some kind of afterword by the author.

“Dear Tomoya,” he reads aloud, and immediately starts, “What the...this is addressed to…me?!”

He scans quickly, shaking his head in disbelief.

 _Dear Tomoya,_  
_I’m a very busy wizard and don’t have the time to explain every little thing to you, but you are obviously a very average person with no natural talent for magic, so it will do you no good to cut corners! You must start from the basics if you wish to learn. I used some magic to put my thoughts into a book; you will find things in here that can only be found by my personal experiments, so you can be assured it is the very best knowledge. As the pages come directly from my mind, it’s likely someone like you won’t understand anything at all, but do try your best, ufufu!_ _☆  
_ _Your very own Hibiki Wataru_

Tomoya has half a mind to tear out the page and crumple it up, or just throw the book altogether as far as he possibly can. Instead he hugs it to his chest. 

_Don’t write out your laughter on the page, idiot._

He flops on his back once more, hoisting the hefty pages over his head to read the note again and again, before dropping the wretched thing on top of his face and expelling a loud sigh.

“You idiot…”

This time, though, it’s not the wizard he’s talking about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Kudos/comments greatly appreciated!


End file.
